ruvnet/ruflo · error

Cycle detected in obligation dependencies

Error message

Cycle detected in obligation dependencies

What it means

Cycle guard in DAGBridge.topologicalSort(): Kahn's algorithm finished with fewer nodes sorted than exist in the obligation dependency graph, proving a cycle. The remaining nodes cannot be ordered, so the method warns and returns the partial sort; dependency float/critical-path results are unreliable.

Source

Thrown at v3/plugins/legal-contracts/src/bridges/dag-bridge.ts:269

    const sorted: Obligation[] = [];
    while (queue.length > 0) {
      const current = queue.shift()!;
      const obligation = indexMap.get(current);
      if (obligation) {
        sorted.push(obligation);
      }

      for (const neighbor of adj[current] ?? []) {
        inDegree[neighbor] = (inDegree[neighbor] ?? 1) - 1;
        if (inDegree[neighbor] === 0) {
          queue.push(neighbor);
        }
      }
    }

    // If not all nodes are in sorted, there's a cycle
    if (sorted.length !== obligations.length) {
      console.warn('Cycle detected in obligation dependencies');
    }

    return sorted;
  }

  /**
   * Detect cycles in dependency graph
   */
  async detectCycles(
    graph: ObligationTrackingResult['graph']
  ): Promise<string[][]> {
    if (!this.initialized) {
      await this.initialize();
    }

    const obligations = graph.nodes.map(n => n.obligation);

    // Create node lookup

View on GitHub (pinned to fa13ee4ad6)

Solutions

1. Inspect the reported dependency chain and remove the circular obligation dependency from the contract definition.
2. If cycles are intentional, switch the traversal to a cycle-tolerant algorithm with explicit handling.
3. Validate obligation graphs at authoring time to reject cycles before runtime.

When it happens

Trigger: Obligation dependency graph contains a cycle (A depends on B which transitively depends on A); topological ordering cannot proceed and the cycle is reported.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of ruvnet/ruflo@fa13ee4ad6 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5ea297703e629347. Report an issue: GitHub.